“I Wish I Were Blind”

September 11th, 2006

Q: Could you tell me if Bruce Springsteen’s song “I Wish I Were Blind” should actually be “I Wish I Was Blind”?

A: No, the Boss is right. “I Wish I Were Blind” is correct.

The reason is that when you express a wish, or when you use an “if” statement (“If I were blind…”) to talk about a condition contrary to fact, you use the subjunctive mood instead of the indicative. So you’d say, “Last year I WAS in Maine” (indicative), but “Now I wish I WERE in Maine” (subjunctive) and “If I WERE in Maine I wouldn’t be here.” That’s why we say things like “If I were king…” or “If only she were here…” or “I wish he were nicer to his parents,” and so on. In the subjunctive mood, “was” becomes “were.”